"Come, Michael," cried Gabrielle sharply; "my brother waits."
Lord Denningham, left alone to moonlight reflection, took snuff with a scowl. He had thought the winning of a country mouse like to be easy work, since past experience had told him that the worse a man is the more probable that he takes the fancy of an innocent maid.
Little Gabrielle Conyers evidently had other tastes; and my lord, half in love by reason of her flouting, swore tremendous oaths.
Thus he was found, later, by Marcel Trouet, whose business in life was to act as a political firebrand, but who did not find his good friends the English of the most inflammable material.
But to-night Marcel was smiling.
"We drink good healths in ze house," he observed, taking Denningham's arm familiarly. "Come, come. We drink well, we sing very well, but we do need your voice to lead the rest. They are sheep who bleat for ze shephaird."
His lordship yawned.
"Why leave them then?" he retorted.
Trouet chuckled.
"Hélas," he murmured. "I am no shephaird, but only what you call the sheep-dog that barks, barks, always barks. But the shephaird of this noble Société de Correspondance——" He bowed with exaggerated politeness.